Corker: Hillary will testify on January 22nd

posted at 12:01 pm on January 9, 2013 by Ed Morrissey

The big news in this clip from yesterday, as both MSNBC and Politico note, is that Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) announced that Hillary Clinton would finally testify about the deadly terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi, with the retiring Secretary of State “anxious” to talk to Congress about what she knows. That. however, wasn’t the main thrust or even the first topic of Andrea Mitchell’s interview with Corker. Instead, she started off by asking Corker about his support for his former colleague Chuck Hagel and his nomination for Secretary of Defense. Instead, Corker brought up an entirely new topic on which Republicans might challenge Hagel — nuclear modernization, which Congress has demanded and on which the Obama administration is already dragging their feet:

In fact, Corker ends up stating that he will “start from a neutral place,” contradicting Mitchell’s premise. Corker then says that John Brennan’s confirmation might end up being more contentious than the media thinks, too. He calls intel briefings “nearly useless,” and tells Mitchell that he learns more watching TV or reading magazines. That doesn’t sound like Brennan will get an easy ride, although Corker declined to comment much on Lindsey Graham’s threat to hold Brennan’s confirmation until the White House provides more answers on how the false “video protest” narrative got fed to the media from the Obama administration.

Eventually, Mitchell gets around to Hillary Clinton:

“I had some very good conversations with her chief of staff,” Corker told Mitchell. “My sense is, her hearing probably will take place the morning of the 22nd.”

Since Clinton’s illness kept her from testifying in December, she has expressed a willingness to testify as soon as her health allowed.

“She’s anxious to want to come up and testify on Benghazi, and I think that’s an important thing both for her but obviously for our country,” Corker said.